Choosing Between Light and Dark Color Scheme

Before you start thinking about technical details, you have to pay attention to the peculiarities of your business. Website design depends on your specific needs, so it’s crucial to make the proper balance between what is right and what suits your organization the most.

You can consider many details here, but three things make the most significant impact during the preparation period. Let’s take a closer look:

1. Define the target audience

Color schemes don’t only depend on the purpose of your website but also on the requirements of the target audience. You need to analyze the typical customer to understand how she/he feels consuming the content.

Shelton Dunn, a web designer, says older users generally respond much better to the lighter color schemes, considering it to be more straightforward in terms of orientation: “Younger people are not afraid to experiment, so they often prefer darker backgrounds. At the same time, children enjoy bright schemes and colorful details that make the content more appealing.”

This is the standard behavioral pattern, but you should dig deeper into the preferences of the target audience to find the perfect combination for your website.

2. The purpose of your site

The purpose of the website is the first thing to consider. Do you want to put textual content in front or instead rely on visual elements such as images or infographics? The color scheme dramatically depends on the way you answer this question.

If your goal is to write a lot of blog posts and other types of textual content, the best option is to go for the light background with dark typography over it. It increases the visibility and makes your content more accessible to read.

On the other hand, darker backgrounds might suit you better if you want to publish images. That way, visual content gets a little bit of the 3D look, thus becoming more attractive and even exclusive on some occasions.

3. Research competitors

The preparation phase is almost over, but you still have one thing left to do – research competitors to see how they solved the color scheme problem. It’s necessary because it could give you a general notion of how your niche works.

You don’t want to be a copycat, so try to come up with a unique color scheme that converts. But if it fails to deliver, while all competitors are doing the opposite time and again, you should reconsider the strategy. Perhaps your niche found the best solution already, so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.